


let 'em wonder how we got this far

by nosecoffee



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell, Hellenistic Religion & Lore
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cerberus makes a cameo, Demeter is mentioned, Demisexual Persephone, Demisexuality, Enthusiastic Consent, Experimental Sex, F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Negotiation, Like God They're So In Love, Love, Loving relationships, Men Get Pegged, Men! Get! Pegged!, Pegging, Power Couple, Relationship Negotiation, Smut, This is the smuttiest thing I’ve ever written, Trust Issues, Underage Sex, Unreliable Narrator, as three adorable puppies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-10-30 23:12:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17837837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: (i don't really need to wonder at all)*They get brunch that Wednesday, and they share a pomegranate as he walks her to work.





	let 'em wonder how we got this far

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Still Into You" by Paramore
> 
> Every time anyone writes a fic where Hades and Persephone don't love each other I only get stronger. And yes, I am aware that Artemis and Apollo are not Hades' siblings, but for the sake of this fic, I have substituted them for Hestia and Demeter.
> 
> I'm not sure if you can tell, but I definitely listened to Hozier's Wasteland, Baby! over and over while writing this, and so actually you can definitely tell. Anyway, enjoy these 8.5k words of the smuttiest fic I have written in my entire life.

The first time Persephone gets fucked, it's by a boy from her chemistry class, in Junior year. His glasses keep slipping down his nose, and it's really not doing anything for her.    
  
Maybe her vagina is broken or something.   
  
She doesn't say anything, however, because he seems to be having fun, and she's not going to ruin this moment for him. That'd be a dick move. Technically it's both their virginities, but if she doesn't even come she doesn't think it counts.   
  
He comes after being inside her for three whopping minutes, and then collapses on top of her.   
  
Persephone tries not to scowl when he pulls away, smiling, and says, "Did you come?"   
  
"Yeah," she replies, even though she didn't even get close. "Thanks, man."   
  
~   
  
The next time she gets fucked, he's the bad boy who skips class to smoke clove cigarettes that make him cough, and she's on her hands and knees, panties still around one knee, shirt shoved up to her collarbones so he can touch her breasts as he fucks her from behind.   
  
He's rougher than the boy from chemistry class, more intent on coming, and at least trying to make her feel good. But one hand is too tight around her hip, and the hand on her breast is fumbling a lot, and not doing all the much.   
  
Nevertheless, Persephone forces a moan from her throat, pushing her hips back into his, mimicking what she thinks she should be doing.   
  
They're placed in such a way on his bed that she's peering over the edge of the bed, staring at her backpack, discarded against the frame. She moans, again, but is lost in her own head, thinking about the test she's got tomorrow, and mentally doing the math to figure out how much study time she needs.   
  
The bad boy fucking her from behind makes a high noise, and then shudders against her, pressing tight into her, so Persephone moans a few more times, higher, and mimics his shudder.   
  
Best to make it feel real.   
  
When he pulls away, Persephone gets off the bed and pulls her panties back up, finding her discarded bra on the ground and putting it on.   
  
"Aren't you gonna stay for round two?" The bad boy asks from the bed, eyes searching, chest still heaving in exertion, sweaty. He's pretty, she guesses, but not impressive.   
  
"I have a test tomorrow." She responds, pulling on her shorts and picking up her bag. He looks disappointed, but then closes his eyes and lays back on his bed.   
  
She leaves.   
  
~   
  
The third time, it's the last football game of the year, and she's being fucked by a player at half time, panties shoved to the side as he fucks her against the wall.   
  
He thought she was pretty because she's a cheerleader, but she just wanted to see if he's any better at fucking her than the other people she's fucked.   
  
But he's not.   
  
His hands are tight on her thighs, keeping her in place, his breath puffing against her neck.   
  
Persephone is scrolling through Google on her phone, over his shoulder, searching the results for "vagina broken?"   
  
She thinks maybe he'd be offended if he knew, but he doesn't.   
  
"I'm gonna come," he groans in warning, and she clicks her phone off, hopping off his hips before taking him in hand and jerking him to completion. He doesn't ask if she came, doesn't check, just winks and takes his leave.   
  
Persephone shoves some toilet paper from a nearby stall up between her legs to get rid of anything embarrassing. The last thing she needs is to be thrown up in the air and show everyone the big come stain on her panties.   
  
~   
  
She fucks her date to the prom in the hotel room they paid for, her on top and riding him. He made it clear that he only invited her because she's black and he thinks black girls are exotic. She almost turned him down for that alone, but then the idea of going alone loomed, and she accepted. He has the good grace to also have a hand between her legs, trying to finger her as well.   
  
Except it's doing fucking nothing.   
  
Persephone fakes it, though. She's had enough experience to know that if she's already getting fucked, it's too late to tell him she's not interested, so may as well let him enjoy it.   
  
As she rides him, she wonders if she's a lesbian, if getting a woman between her legs, getting fucked with a strap on or a vibrator or a tongue was better than being fucked with a cock.   
  
Persephone fakes an orgasm for him, right before he comes. That's the trick, figuring out when to clench tight and fake it so he'll have a better time than she can.   
  
When they're collapsed on the bed together, breathing heavily, Persephone turns to him and says, "Hey, could I ride your face?"   
  
"Are you kidding?" He replies, aghast. "That's so gross."   
  
~   
  
The lesbian thing doesn't pan out. Once her dates realise she's experimenting, they get disgusted and leave. Persephone doesn't blame them, if she found out her date was using her for sex she'd also be disgusted.   
  
Except that that's every date she's ever been on. Using her for sex.   
  
She takes a break from sex for a while. A long while. And that's fine with her. It never really featured heavily in her life, so why should she mourn its absence?   
  
She's twenty two when she's working in a pet shop and meets Hades.   
  
He's tall with black hair, brown skin that's just light enough to see freckles underneath his eyes and across his nose, with dark brown eyes, and a dark green peacoat on. He's quite handsome, despite the crooked nose and healing split lip, and Persephone spends a lot of time looking away from him, heat in her cheeks.   
  
He brings in his three identical puppies to get jumpers. "It's their first winter, and I just want to make sure they don't freeze or anything," he informs her, gravely, scratching one of them behind the ear. "I'm thinking jackets and those little insulated boots?"   
  
Persephone agrees, and shows him their best brands, even offering him a small discount on account for his dogs being adorable.   
  
"That's awesome, thank you." He says, once she's rung him up and passed the purchased items to him in a bag. "You have no idea how unhelpful a bunch of other shops have been."   
  
"Ah. Well, the industry is fickle." Persephone responds, and then crouches to give his puppies ear scratches. "Come by any time, especially with these three little angels."   
  
Hades laughs, though she doesn't know his name yet, and agrees that he'll definitely come back soon.   
  
And he does. He brings one of the puppies every time, heading into winter he brings them in the jackets and boots, and Persephone fawns over them. She gets to know him, convincing him to sign up for their membership program, since he does all his pet shopping there, and he'll save money, as well as get rewards.   
  
She's not even a tad surprised when he eventually asks her out. "I know this is so out of nowhere, and this is probably going to be super creepy, but do you want to go out for coffee or something? I think you're really great, and I don't just want to see you in store."   
  
Perhaps she should find it creepy. Perhaps it is creepy, but Persephone doesn't care.   
  
They get brunch that Wednesday, and they share a pomegranate as he walks her to work.   
  
~   
  
So Hades becomes her boyfriend.   
  
Her mother doesn't approve when she finds out.   
  
"You should be going for your PhD, right now, not a boy." She says, over Skype, and Persephone fakes a connection problem. She's gotten pretty good at faking things, though it's been a while since she's faked an orgasm.   
  
And that's what makes her pull back, a little.   
  
At some point, Hades might be expecting sex, and she doesn't want to ruin him with the awful fake sex she has, the only sex she's ever had. Of course, she could just tell him that sex doesn't work for her at all, and watch the consequences of putting it off the table completely unfold. But ending things with Hades sounds like the worst thing she could ever do.   
  
So, she brings it up at dinner one night. "I don't want to have sex."   
  
Hades chokes on a bite of his steak. Persephone pats him on the back, awkwardly, and waits for him to stop choking.   
  
Hades kind of stares at her kind of at the centrepiece of the table as he says, "Okay? Did I ever make you think that I expected that from you?"   
  
"No," she responds, lightly, "it's just that people usually expect sex in a relationship, and I...I don't want to have sex."   
  
"Okay, uh, well, I don't expect anything from you, except that you'll want to keep dating me, and should that change I'll accept it, readily." He clears his throat again, dark eyes watering slightly, but he's smiling at her, reassuringly. "Sex is a mutual agreement, and if you don't want it, its not happening. It's off the table."   
  
"Uh..." Persephone just kind of wants to die right then right there, how did she manage to score one of the sweetest most considerate guys in the world? "I don't even know how to-"   
  
"Don't thank me for being a decent human being, Seph." Hades interrupts her, biting his lip. "If you ever want to talk about it, you know you can always come to me, right?"   
  
~   
  
It takes a while for her to come to the decision to tell him. They were together for two months when they took sex off the table, and now it's been five months. Her mother is getting used to the idea that Persephone is living her life, even if she's still dismissive over Hades.   
  
Persephone spends a lot of time around his place, playing with his puppies, sleeping in his arms, raiding his fridge. Her place is stuffy and very small, so he says he gets it. He says if she ever decides she's over it, moving into his place is always an option, for her.   
  
It's during a conversation on his couch, one puppy settled on either side of her, and the third one in his lap, her laptop open on a current research paper, that she finally plucks up enough courage to broach the sex subject.   
  
"So, uh, in high school, I decided to lose my virginity to this loser who was also my chem partner? We were both very inexperienced. He came. I didn't. I didn't derive pleasure from anything he did, had never touched myself. And since then, every sexual encounter I've had has been for the person that encounter is with rather than for me."   
  
Hades doesn't look at her, but by the way he's breathing, she knows he's listening and is trying to figure out how to respond. "So you've - what? Never come?" His voice is shaking a little, but she elects to ignore that in favour of answering his question.   
  
"Yeah." Persephone agrees, patting the puppy to her left. He snuffles in his sleep, and she hides a small smile. "I stopped having sex a while back when I figured out I must be broken or something."

She means it to be funny, to lighten the mood. Hades doesn’t take it as a joke. His voice turns sharp, suddenly, "Did someone tell you that?"   
  
"No. I told myself that." She responds, voice tight. She's never heard him speak like that, like he could raze a person to the ground with a single word if he wanted to. It occurs to her that she's never heard anyone say a bad word about him, and while that might be because he's the sweetest man she's ever known, it might also be because anyone with a bad word to say is too scared of him to say it. "It seemed like the only answer. Like, what kind of freak doesn't know how to come?"   
  
"You're not a freak." She turns to look at him, cautiously. He's not sharp, anymore. He's looking at her with an unreadable look in his eye. "You're not a freak," he repeats, reaching out, tentatively, "You've just obviously got some issues to work through."   
  
"They're not  _ issues _ , Hades," and Persephone doesn't mean for this to come out as sharp as it does, "I  _ can't come _ ."   
  
"Don't phrase that like a challenge." Hades says to her, softly. There's something dangerous in how soft his voice is.   
  
Persephone doesn't back down, "And what if I do?"   
  
"Then I'll have to ask you to put sex back on the table so I can prove you wrong." His eyes flash, and the corner of his mouth quirks up, and Persephone was wondering when she'd get to this side of him, she knew it was there she just didn't know when it would show itself.   
  
"Do you want me to put sex back on the table?" Persephone asks him, playfully.   
  
"I want whatever you want." Hades replies, pointedly avoiding answering her question.   
  
"Take my wants out of the equation, Hades," she says, waving his comment away and leaning into his space, their lips inches from each other. She wouldn't blame him for stealing a kiss right then. He doesn't. "What do you want?"   
  
"I want to prove you wrong," he breathes, struggling to maintain eye contact with her despite their proximity, "so are we doing this or aren't we?"   
  
~   
  
They abandon their laptops and the TV and the puppies, behind the closed bedroom door, and Persephone sheds her clothes, down to her underwear. Hades has seen her in this much before, it's never bothered her until now, until she can feel his gaze on her, hungry but hesitant. He won't take unless she tells him to.   
  
It's both infuriating and enough to make her love him.   
  
"How do you want to do this?" She asks, putting more confidence into her tone than she truly feels. Persephone's terrified he'll be the wrong one in this situation and he'll leave her when he sees how broken she is, but he's already told her he doesn't think she's broken.   
  
"Hop up on the bed," he instructs, loftily.   
  
Persephone does as she's told. When she's settled up against the pillow, she turns to find him trying back his hair with one of her scrunchies, shirt discarded on the floor. She's seems him in this much before, but it's never really mattered until now. It's not new, and yet she feels like this is the first time she's seen this much of him. Maybe it's more what he's baring of his soul than what he's baring of his skin.   
  
He kneels on the edge of the bed, and looks at her seriously. "You'll tell me to stop if anything isn't good, yes?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"I don't care what it is, just stop me."   
  
"I  _ get it _ , Hades." She huffs, but then he's pressed up against her, her thighs bracketing his hips. His bare chest is pressing up against her bra clad torso, and his lips are inches from hers. He's too tantalising, so she pecks his lips a few times, before giving in and kissing him properly, pulling, lightly, on his ponytail.   
  
There's a burn on Hades' tongue that is reminiscent of the wasabi from dinner at the sushi train, and she relishes it. She bites down, softly, on his lower lip, and he pulls back while it's still clenched between her teeth. She releases him, and finds his index fingers hooked in the waistband of her panties.   
  
"If you do this that slow," Persephone breathes, finding it hard to keep her eyes on him, "it's definitely gonna be awkward. You've got my okay; if it's not I'll tell you. Don't draw this out."   
  
Hades blinks and nods, and then he slides out from between her legs to pull her panties off. She's done this before, she knows how it goes, but she still shakes a bit.   
  
What she's not expecting at all, is that when he's discarded her underwear off the side of the bed, he'll take her by the hips, fingertips pressing into the curve of her ass, and pull her towards his mouth.   
  
Persephone scrambles against the bedsheets, "What are you doing?" She demands.   
  
Hades pulls away, immediately. "What's wrong?"   
  
"I thought we were having sex." Persephone replies, pulling her knees up to her chest.   
  
He frowns, "Me eating you out counts as sex, you know that right?"   
  
"Of  _ course _ I know that, I'm not an idiot." She snaps. One of the dogs, on the other side of the bedroom door, whines. "I  _ thought _ you were going to fuck me."   
  
"And how exactly would that make you come if you've already said that any other time you've been fucked, you didn't come?" Hades questions, quite rationally, damn him.   
  
She stares at him for a long time, and when she finally comes back to herself, she looks away, face reddening. "Sorry."   
  
"No, don't be sorry." He murmurs, taking her hand in his. "Just tell me that you don't want to."   
  
He plants a kiss right in the middle of her palm, and then the heel of her hand, and then her wrist. "I do," Persephone tells him, and tries not to squirm under his attentions, "just got spooked." His mouth is warm at the crook of her elbow, his dark eyes staring up at her with their deep depths asking her questions she's not sure she's ready to answer.   
  
"I'll go slower," Hades says to her, pulling away and nodding to himself.   
  
"No, don't," she practically whines, and goes pink at how childish she sounds.   
  
"You just said I spooked you by jumping right into it," he points out, "so I'm going to ease you into it."   
  
"Damn you." Persephone curses, pushing her knees away from her chest, and opens her legs again, watching him as he gets settled with her heels on his shoulders.   
  
Hades leans his cheek against her knee and grins at her, "You don't mean that."   
  
"No," Persephone says, sliding down the pillows until her shoulder blades rest against the soft coolness of the bottom sheet on his mattress. His kisses linger on her knee. "No, I don't."

He takes his time with her, trailing kisses, slowly, up her legs, smoothing patterns into her thighs with the pads of his fingers in an attempt to soothe her into a state of calmness. Persephone finds herself looking down at him more often than at the ceiling, which is unusual, especially when it comes to sex. The amount of time she's spent staring at anything but her partner during sex is astronomical.

But Persephone feels so soft for him. He refuses to hurt her, refuses to be a cause of her pain, and so he is causing her pain by being so kind. Persephone runs her fingers through the hair at the end of his ponytail, the corkscrews curling around her knuckles, and she tugs, lightly, to fast-forward his advances. Instead, he lets out a surprised groan and looks up at her with dark eyes that are more pupil than iris.

Neither of them speak for a moment, and the Hades drops a kiss to the seam of her thigh and hip, and so she tugs his hair again, harder this time from around where the scrunchie holds it, and sighs, “ _ Hades _ .”

The next thing she knows, she's gasping in surprise and jolting off the mattress in shock. Obviously, Hades was expecting this, because his hands are like vices on her hips, and he holds her steady against the sheets as he continues to work his mouth over her. Nothing’s ever felt quite like this before, quite like this hot wet attention.

He looks up at her, for a moment, she thinks, she doesn't know, she can only feel him, her eyes are clenched shut. “Seph?” He breathes, pulling away, so she digs her nails into the back of his neck, where he hands have wandered.

“No, keep going, please,” she begs, completely shameless, and a moment later he obeys.

This time, Hades wastes no time, and using his hands on her ass to lift her hips slightly, licks into her. Persephone shudders at the sensation. For some reason, she doesn't feel like moaning outright. She wonders if that annoys him. Maybe he'd like this better if she was being fully appreciative? Maybe she should moan, or something, instead of just breathing erratically and whispering  _ please. _

His tongue retreats and Persephone opens her eyes, looking down to find him staring up at her. “Just checking in,” he assures her, mouthing at her thigh. “You look tense.”

“I'm fine,” she replies, and finds her voice is several octaves higher than usual. Hades grins.

“As long as you're sure.” Hades says, and lowers his head once more.

This time, he focuses his attention on her clit, and  _ what _ a thing to do. Persephone bucks her hips, and waits a second after to whisper an apology. She's supposed to be the perfect girlfriend, right? But no, he's never expected that of her, never asked that of her, he doesn't care that she's no good at sex. He seems to like her anyway.

Persephone is so preoccupied by his attention to her clit, that she barely registers his fingers lightly stroking up her inner thigh. “Seph,” he says, lips still pursed against her.

“Don't stop,” she whines, like a petulant child.

“I'm not,” Hades laughs, “I just want to know if you're okay with fingering.”

Persephone has been fingered by every guy she's ever fucked. None of them were good at it. What if he's not good at it? Would that ruin this? But he's been so nice, she should let him.

“Yeah, that's -  _ oh _ , geez, okay.” He laughs again, and goes back to eating her out. Now, she's more than a little aware of his fingers. He isn't touching her yet, just brushing the tips of them against her thigh, like he's working up to it. She hopes it's not bad, she hopes it's going to be good.

Either way, it feels good now. With unfocused attention everywhere, hot and wet and hard, he's being so good to her, how is he so good at this, she wants him so badly. Is that what it's supposed to feel like? She's supposed to want him with everything she has?

When his fingers come into play, all apprehension is gone. Persephone is feeling too fully to feel afraid that it will be bad. And Hades slides the tip of his finger in, while putting pressure on her clit with his mouth, and something sqeezes in her stomach, making her gasp. “Okay, so that's, yes-”

“Yes?” Hades echoes. Persephone shoves his head back between her legs, and then apologises profusely. He just laughs. “Okay, okay, I’ve got you.”

Persephone barely keeps track as they progress from the tip of his finger to the whole thing to two to three. She's bucking her hips so much she's basically riding his hand. He's stopped mouthing at her. She didn't know fingering could be this good.

“Come up here,” she says to him, and Hades obeys, crawling up her body with his hand still moving against her to kiss her, sweetly. Persephone ignores the heady taste on his tongue, and just kisses him for all he’s worth. She's never felt like this about anyone, and no one else has ever made her feel this much.

“Are you close?” He asks the corner of her mouth, twisting his fingers in a certain way that make her say  _ ah, fuck _ .

“I don't know,” Persephone confesses, and sees his warm brown eyes watching her earnestly, “I just, please, faster-”

He speeds up immediately. His hand must be getting tired. She'll apologise for that later. He'll probably tell her not to be sorry. She won't be.

He presses his thumb to her clit and twists his fingers in that way she likes, again, and Persephone rocks into his chest, murmuring, “Please, please, please, oh fuck-”

“Yeah?” Hades asks, sitting up so her thigh is slung over his hip. She can't even imagine how debauched she looks right now. He probably doesn't care about how debauched she looks, he probably only cares about making her come, which she's gotta do sometime, just come  _ on _ . “You almost there?”

“I think,” she gasps, and reaches for his free hand. He grabs it and squeezes. Persephone lifts it to her mouth and kisses the back of it. His eyes grow a little softer at that.

And then he presses down hard on her clit and Persephone is speechless because she's all warm and wonderful and she shudders. She shakes and gasps and drags him down on top of her, rolling her hips into his hand until the waves of pleasure subside.

Persephone keeps her eyes shut tight for a while as she catches her breath. She doesn’t really want to look at him just yet. She’s not sure if he’s disgusted with her or not, she just doesn’t want this to end yet, just please give her a minute.

“Hey,” he murmurs, and his free hand, the one she can’t remember letting go of, comes up to brush her cheek. “Seph,  _ hey _ .”

Persephone opens her eyes, and there’s Hades, gazing down at her with big brown eyes. He doesn’t look disgusted. If anything, he looks proud. Persephone tries not to disentangle that. “Hi,” she murmurs back. She’s fucking exhausted. Who knew sex could take it out of you?

“How you feeling?” Hades asks her, and draws his hand out from between her legs, helping her into a sitting position.

“Pretty good, I’ll be honest.” She replies, and then yawns. He laughs. Persephone closes her eyes again, and drifts for a moment, head dropping onto his shoulder. “You were so good to me.”

“Well, I aim to please.” Hades tells her, pressing a soft kiss to the crown of her head.

Persephone reaches a hand across his chest to drape it around his neck. “You did more than please.” She assures him. She wishes she hadn’t tried to lose her virginity to that boy from her chem class, wishes she’d waited for him. But in the end, he’s still been better for her than anyone, so it really doesn’t matter.

“Did I?” He questions.

“Yeah.” Persephone agrees. “That was the  _ first orgasm _ of my  _ life _ . And it was incredible. Go you, you did what no one else could.” She looks down, and registers the tent in his jeans. He must notice her gaze, because he tenses up just a bit.

“You don’t have to do anything about that,” Hades says, at the same time that Persephone asks, “Do you want me to go down on you?”

They pull apart so they can assess each other visually. Hades looks incredibly torn. Like he’s thinking  _ I just gave her a rocking orgasm, do I deserve one? _

Persephone looks away. She thinks he definitely deserves a stellar blowjob after the incredible head he just gave her, but she’s not going to push it.

“Not this time, I don’t think.” He eventually says, even though it looks like it’s taking all his power to turn her down. “I think a shower and teeth brushing is in order.”

“Ugh, you domestic old man.”

“You complaining?”

Persephone gets to her feet to reprimand him while she’s taller than him, and then nearly topples over. Hades laughs as he steadies her. “Maybe a shower would be a good idea,” she agrees, woozily.

Hades helps her through the tsunami of puppies that waits on the other side of the bedroom door and into the bathroom. They shower together. It's really nice. And she does end up getting him off there with her hand as she kisses him, sweetly. It's nice to be that in control.

~

“What did you say your mother’s name was, again?” Hades asks her, once, giving his laptop screen an intense look. He’s technically cooking stir fry, but his wok has been untouched for about a minute now. Hades likes cooking for her, he just gets distracted rather easily.   


Persephone takes his spatula from him and picks up where he left off in terms of cooking. He’s obviously very focused on whatever’s going on.

“I don't think I ever did,” she replies. “But it’s Demeter. Why?”

Persephone looks over her shoulder and sees Hades biting his lip. “That’s an awful coincidence,” he says to her. “Because she’s a friend of my sister.”

Persephone furrows her brow and looks at his laptop screen. Yes, that’s her mothers latest Facebook rant about Persephone and her good-for-nothing boyfriend. “You’re friends with my mother on Facebook?” She asks, incredulous.

“To be fair, I didn’t know she was your mother when I friended her.” Hades replies, holding his hands up in surrender. Persephone clicks her tongue and turns back to the stir fry. “And I guess she didn’t know I was your boyfriend. She’s been rudely ranting about me for months, except I never realised she was talking about me. I’ve been reading them for a while going  _ huh, that sounds a bit like me _ .”

“She’s awfully cryptic. I have her muted.” She tells him, nonchalantly. Her mother is so overbearing, it's why they hardly talk anymore. “I also never told her your name. Wait, your sister is Artemis?” Persephone takes the wok off heat and turns to him with narrowed eyes. Yes, looking at him, she can see the resemblance. Artemis is probably a few inches shorter, and her hair maybe a shade lighter.

Hades raises his eyebrows. “You know her?”

“We grew up together.” Persephone explains, waving a hand. Then, she laughs, remembering all the times Artemis had complained at a playdate that her brothers had wanted to come along, too. “It’s a wonder we never met before now.”

“Wait, is Persephone your given name?” Ah, of course. She flushes.

“No.” Persephone admits. “The name I grew up with was Kore, but I changed it when I turned eighteen. My mother was furious.”

Hades legitimately looks delighted. He grabs her hands and squeezes them, saying, “I  _ always _ wanted to meet you. Artemis would go on and on about how cool you were.”

“Well,” Persephone laughs, and kisses his cheek, “maybe my mother will reconsider her stance on you once she knows it’s you that’s my boyfriend. She  _ loves _ Artemis.”

“Maybe she will.” Hades agrees, reaching into a drawer to find cutlery. “Or maybe Artemis will tell her I'm good for nothing, and your mother will unfriend me and post another rant about me.”

“You're  _ not _ good for nothing.” Persephone tells him, getting out bowls and giving him an earnest look. “You are good for  _ so _ many things.”

“You're just saying that because the sex is amazing.” He teases her as she scrapes the stir fry into two bowls.

“That's a plus.” She replies, loftily.

~

Their sex life progresses nicely. At first they experiment with hands and mouths, experiment with how their bodies react to each other, which is almost always good.

The first time they have penetrative sex Hades is so delicate with her. He doesn’t want to hurt her, he doesn’t want to disappoint her. He spends so long prepping her, eventually Persephone has to pull him away by his hair and hiss  _ I’m ready. _

And she rides him with her hands clenched around his hips until her thighs burn too much. Maybe she finally gets what sex is about then - what she knew she was missing when she faked it for all those boys - when Hades flips them over and fucks her slow and hard against the sheets. Her arms are looped around his neck and all she can do is hold on and rock her hips into his when he falters.

It’s all in all pretty awesome when it comes to the sexual part of their relationship. Everything else is still good, but they struggle for sure.

Two or so months after they first have sex Persephone moves in with him, which her mother protests at first, and then she finds out Hades is Hades and is shady for the next few days. It’s a struggle, but there’s always going to be bumps in the road.

With Hades and three adorable puppies, how bad can her life be?

~

“She wasn't kidding.” Artemis says as Persephone opens the apartment door. Persephone barely gets to register that her childhood best friend is at the door when Artemis flings herself into her arms and lifts her up, spinning her around. “Oh my god, you're still so tiny.”

“Artemis?” Persephone asks, and the woman sets her down, setting her hands on her hips as she surveys Persephone. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, your mom said you were dating my brother so I had to see for myself.” Artemis looks less than impressed as she proclaims this. “And here you are, in his apartment, wearing his clothes, looking like you just got fucked within an inch of your life.”

“Oh…” Persephone says. She is wearing Hades’ clothes. They were going to have a night in. She didn’t bother putting on more than a t-shirt. She watches Artemis’ eyes slide over her and onto the snuffling puppies in the doorway.

“Who are these?” Artemis gasps, delighted, and falls to her knees in front of the three excited pomeranians. They immediately mob her, yapping excitedly.

Persephone watches on, amused, as Artemis showers them with kisses, cooing  _ who’s a good boy?  _ “They’re Cerberus as a unit.” Artemis arches a questioning brow. “It means  _ spotted  _ in Greek, because your brother thinks he’s a goddamn comedian.”

“Classic Hades.” Artemis laughs and gets to her feet, despite the puppies jumping on her knees. “God, that’s almost a dad joke - Zeus would be so proud.”

“Zeus?” Persephone asks.

“Yeah, god, I have so many siblings.” Persephone remembers Hades saying that before. Three brothers and a sister, and apparently their dad had been an asshole before he died. “So it goes Zeus, Poseidon, me and Apollo ‘cause we’re twins, and Hades. Zeus has three kids now, I think? He’s insufferable.”

Persephone snorts, waving Artemis into the kitchen with her, “Sounds like a riot.”

“Shoulda seen his face when he found out little Hades was dating you, Kore.” She says, following behind. “Bet he was on the phone to Poseidon the minute I left, like  _ didya know Hades has got a girlfriend and if you did why didn’t you tell me _ ?”

“Actually,” Persephone says, conversationally, as she gets a cup for Artemis to drink from, “I changed my name. It’s Persephone now.”

“Persephone.” Artemis sounds it out and then nods to herself, drinking a mouthful of water from the cup Persephone hands her. “That’s a bit of a mouthful.”

“I know.” Persephone tells her, pulling out some crackers.

“How can I shorten it?” She asks, with a musing look on her face.

“You could call me  _ Seph _ .” She suggests. “Your brother does.”

“Ew, he probably calls you that during sex.” Persephone looks at the ground because if Artemis saw her face after saying that she’d know it’s true and tease her. “I’m gonna call you Persie.”

Persephone laughs. “Okay.”

“So tell me,” Artemis leans in and grins in a way she’s sure Hades could but never does. “What’s my brother like, boyfriend wise.”

“You don’t want me to answer that.” She tells the other girl. What could she tell her?  _ I’m not sure I deserve your brother. I think I love him. He’s so good to me. I’m not sure if my mom likes him or not and I don’t care. _

“I so do,” Artemis insists, looking too cheekily like Hades, then, “just leave out the sex stuff.”

Persephone rolls her eyes. She relents.

~

When Hades comes home, he has a small box settled in the crook of his elbow, and he looks more affronted to see Artemis than Persephone thinks he means to look.

In any case, they have dinner all together, and Artemis takes her leave with a loud goodbye and a mint in Persephone’s hand, accompanied with a knowing wink.

“So what's in the box?” Persephone asks, once Artemis is gone. She absolutely partakes in the mint. “And if you say Gwenyth Paltrow’s head, I'm going to be a little upset with you.”

She laughs, but he doesn’t. Persephone worries, very quietly. “Before we open it,” Hades says, “we need to have a discussion.”

“I really hope the discussion isn’t  _ we’re breaking up. _ ” She only says this because she’s nervous. His moods are contagious, she’s found.

“It’s not,” he assures her. “It’s a sex discussion.”

Persephone freezes a bit. Is this the part where he tells her he’s been faking it this whole time? Is this the part where he tells her she’s awful and he wants to see other people? She dismisses the thoughts from her mind. She’s just being paranoid, Hades wouldn’t do that.

“You look freaked out,” he says, looking concerned.

“I’m not.” Persephone replies, and picks up one of the puppies, holding him to her chest. “What did you want to-?”

“Are you okay?” Hades presses, eyebrows furrowing. If he keeps making that face he’s going to have such wrinkles on his forehead when he gets older.

“I’m fine.” She assures him. She doesn’t want him to worry. She casts her gaze back to the box. “What’s in the box?”

“We need to talk before I tell you.” He says again.

“Stop being cryptic.” Persephone scoffs, pressing a kiss to the puppy’s head before setting him back down on the floor.

“How comfortable are you with sex, right now?” Hades asks her, looking sheepish.

“Pretty comfortable,” she answers, cocking her head to the side, “you know that.”

“Okay, so,” he taps his knees with the tips of his fingers, nervously, “how would you feel if I asked you to do something for me?”

“I’m not gonna hit you if that’s what you’re asking.” Persephone immediately rules out. The idea of ever causing him pain, even if he liked it, seems unimaginable. “I’m not a sadist, like, I’m not into hurting people, especially not you.”

“That’s not it, don’t worry.” Hades reassures her, and gives her that soft smile he loves to give her in those lovely gentle moments she’s not expecting. He just makes her feel incredibly soft. “It’s…”

“Hey,” she says, quietly. She kind of wants to reach out to him, he looks like he needs to be touched. “You can talk to me.”

Hades looks up, inhales deeply, and says, “I want you to fuck me.”

Persephone blinks. “Uh,” she says, hoping he doesn’t feel as awkward as she does, right now. “How would I do that?”

Hades takes a deep breath and picks up the box, handing it to her. It’s a strap-on. And a harness. Nothing gaudy. Persephone can feel his eyes on her. He seems nervous. And she gets it, she does, because she knows, now, how it is to be wanted like that, how it is to be taken care of like that, to relent control. She gets why he’d want that.

“If it’s-“ he begins, and Persephone already knows what he’s going to say.

“No,” she interrupts, setting the box aside. Hades gazed back at her, uncertainty written all across his face. “I’ll do this for you. I’m just - I’m gonna need a little bit to get my head around it.”

Tension leaks from his posture at this. She crosses the space between them and climbs onto his lap, pressing the tips of their noses together. She knew when she met him that he was an affectionate type; it’s clear as day now, when he breathes out shakily and hugs her to him by her waist.

Persephone runs a hand down the side of his face and exhales.

“Thanks,” Hades mumbles and then laughs, obviously riding out the high of his apprehension.

“No problem,” Persephone replies, teasingly, and gets a soft kiss for her troubles.

~

It takes them a week to try it out.

Persephone does her research. She admits it’s a little more confronting than she made it out to be, but it’s Hades, and he almost never asks her for anything. If it’s what he wants, she’s going to do her damndest to do it.

(She doesn’t tell him this. It was obviously hard enough for him to ask in the first place.)

Persephone knows, going in, this is going to be awkward for the both of them, so she puts on a brave face and takes control of the situation.

This includes, and is not exclusive, to kissing him against a wall until she can feel him hard in his pants, stripping him, and laying him down on their bed with his wrists pressed to the mattress above his head. She likes being this in control. She thinks he likes it too, if the noises he’s making are anything to go by.

Eventually, Persephone has to get out of her clothes as well, so she sits up and pulls her top over her head, shaking her hair out of its knot on the top of her head.

“Is it my birthday or something?” Hades asks, sounding breathless. He looks pretty debauched, his lips kiss swollen, pupils blown wide, hair mussed up.

Persephone sets her hands on her hips and smiles down at him. “Don’t tell me you forgot,” she says, and leans down to kiss his neck. She kisses up it until she reaches his ear, and then she says, “I’m going to fuck you.”

She hears Hades’ breath hitch and relishes how the sound resonates in her chest and her stomach.

He gets rid of the rest of his clothes as she strips down to her underwear and gets out the harness and the strap-on, already fitted to her, since she tried it on earlier. She doesn’t put it on, yet. There’s a bunch of business that comes before.

Persephone pulls out the lube from the top drawer of his bedside table, and turns to face him. Hades is staring at his fingernails, sitting on the edge of the bed. Persephone feels her heart flutter.

She does away with any dominant pretence for the moment and crawls across the bed to kiss him. God, he makes her bold, and he makes her so soft. She feels like she could set fire to the world for him. She feels like she never wants to be anywhere else.

When Persephone pulls away, he looks pleasantly surprised. She laughs to herself and pecks his cheek before picking up the lube again, “It’s time for the fun bit.”

"Are you saying that wasn't fun?" Hades breathes, and Persephone sticks her tongue out at him.

She guides him onto his hands and knees, fingers still smelling of the ginger she had grated into their dinner. The scent is liquidised on her fingertips, spreading onto his skin where she touches him.

Persephone hushes him as she spreads him open with slick fingers, and is unrelenting in it. When Hades cries out, head curling down to his chest, fists scrunching the quilt, as she caresses one of his inner walls, she smiles and repeats the motion a few times. She wonders if anyone’s done him this kindness before. She thinks they probably haven’t. She relishes the thought that she’s his first the way he was hers.

“Seph,  _ Seph _ \- oh, okay, no, I’m good, we’re good, please-“

“Now?” She asks, and extracts her fingers from him.

“Yes,” Hades says, catching his breath, “yeah.”

Persephone presses her cheek to the space on his back between his shoulder blades, and lets her eyes lashes flutter against his hot skin. This whole situation is making her feel far too powerful. “How about a  _ please _ , honey?” She suggests, teasingly.

She is in no way prepared, however, for how absolutely wrecked he sounds, when he says  _ please, _ quietly. Persephone feels her heart in her throat. She puts on the harness, getting used to the weight of it, again, and closes a hand around his hip.

“Seph,” Hades moans, and she kisses his ribs, hushing him, again.

“I’ve got you.” Persephone assures him, and pushes the strap-on into him. And he shakes. He shudders, and arches his back, and he whispers something like  _ oh my god  _ under his breath, despite the fact that Persephone knows he doesn’t believe in god.

Her hips are pressed flush to his ass, and she’s curled over his back. Persephone hadn’t anticipated how intimate it would be to do this for him, to be right here, in this moment, with him.

“Tell me,” she says, voice shaky despite all her attention being on him. “Tell me if you don’t like anything. If you need to stop-“

“Seph, please,” and he reaches up to grab her free hand, squeezing it. She gets the picture.

Persephone pulls back, releasing his hand and feeling the harness bite into her skin as the strap-on complies, and feels the reverberation of his moan through where her hand is pressed to his chest. When she thrusts again he rocks back into it, and it becomes a rhythm, his head bowed, hands clenched in the sheets.

There’s nothing particularly grand about fucking Hades, except that she’s fucking Hades and he sounds blissed out of his mind every time she thrusts.

Eventually, Persephone gets out of her own mind enough to realise she hasn’t touched his cock throughout this entire encounter. She reaches around and wraps her hand around his cock, tight, and Hades immediately reacts, gasping out a moan. “You’re trying to kill me,” he accuses her, sounding breathlessly outraged.

Persephone just laughs and thrusts harder, licking her hand so its movements are easier on his cock.

It only takes him a few minutes to come, between her fucking him with precise thrusts and her hand around his cock, and the sound he makes, face pressed to the mattress below them is a sincerely destroyed one, one that absolutely Persephone needs to hear again.

Persephone holds him steady by his hip as she pulls out. He collapses onto the sheets as soon as she’s off the bed, taking off the harness. Persephone has no idea where to put the strap-on, so she walks past the sleeping puppies outside the bedroom to drop it in the bathroom sink. She’ll wash it properly, later.

When she returns to the bedroom, Hades looks to be on the edge of sleep even as he cleans himself up. Persephone smiles to herself and runs a hand through his sweaty hair in greeting. Hades closes his eyes at the touch and leans into her hand. Her heart thumps hard in her chest. Her throat feels tight.

“Hey,” she whispers, running the hand in his hair down to his face and stroking his cheekbone with her thumb. “Why don’t we shower before you pass out?”

Hades hums his agreement and allows her to lead him into the bathroom. She thinks she’s just going to take care of him until he goes unconscious, tonight, and won’t that just be the proudest thing she’s done in her life? Except that once the shower’s running, Hades helps her out of her underwear and kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her. Her back meets the shower wall, his lips meet the hollow of her neck, quickly followed by his teeth, grazing and teasing.

Persephone would be lying if she said fucking him like that hadn’t turned her on, but she hadn’t expected anything in return. It was about him, after all. Hades seems to disagree.

“Next time,” he says, his teeth now running over the curve of her jaw, and the idea of a  _ next time _ makes her shiver, “you should face me when you fuck me.”

“‘d love to.” Persephone replies, and closes her eyes when he lifts her up against his hips. The feeling is bubbling in her lungs, in her stomach, in the roots of her teeth. Hades kisses the spot just off the corner of her eye, and she strokes his wet face with both hands. “I - I love you.”

He doesn’t still, doesn’t stop kissing her, but he kisses her around her eyes until she opens them so he knows she's paying attention as he says, “I love you, too.”

There is not a single nerve in her body that doesn't believe him.

~

Her mother doesn't really like Hades, but that's okay. Persephone almost never sees her mother anymore, so it's not exactly a problem. His family don't believe he’ll stay with her for long. They don't have enough faith in his decision making skills because theirs are terrible and they assume he picked that up from them. What they don't understand is that she has equal share of decisions in the relationship.

What matters is that she likes Hades - loves him, actually - and he loves her. Crazy that they found each other in the world, despite the amount of times they just missed each other; crazy that despite their reservations it still works between them. Persephone wouldn't give him up for the world.

It's mostly when she's lying in bed with him, watching his chest rise and fall as he sleeps, the serenity in the moment, or when his back is turned to her in the shower, and he hums something under his breath when he's shampooing his hair, the muscles in his back rolling with each movement of his wrist, or when they're sitting on the couch together, pretending to do work, but really patting his dogs and casting mischievous glances at each other that Persephone has that brief  _ oh  _ moment of  _ I love him _ .

There are others too, of course, but they're normal, she understands them. In the quiet moments they shock her. Her love for him, and likewise his for her, is not shocking, but it comes as a surprise each time. Persephone thought love was sex and understanding sex between two people. But it's more than that, it's the moments after sex, the moments before, the moments discussing it, the moments it's not present at all.

Persephone loves him for how he's fixed her point of view, for she was never broken in the first place, really. He made her focus like laser instead of being fuzzy, and he did it with ease and enjoyment. She took his frail trust and strengthened it, and she did so with eagerness and love.

Persephone loves Hades, loves the little things that make him him, and she knows she has it in her to raze any person to the ground who says a word against him.

  
  


**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! If you liked it, please leave me a kudos an then let me know all about it in the comments. Hmu on Tumblr @nose-coffee for memes about Hozier and notifications when I post fic. Once again, thanks for reading, hope you liked it.


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